THE MARRIAGE QUESTION.
"The Lords they tooke it grievously,
The Commons cryed pitiously."
It has already been mentioned that there was one recurrent subject of
discussion which saved Oneirian politics from entire extinction. This
was the great marriage question.
The wise founder, anxious no doubt to perpetuate his race to the ends
for which he had lived, and fully aware of the jeopardy to which his
descendants would be exposed in the midst of savage Berber tribes, had
made it an intrinsic part of the constitution that every king of
Oneiria, before he reached the age of thirty, must marry the woman
chosen for him by his people.
Formerly the Parliament had taken the greatest interest in its
legislative work. Each proposal was debated at length, and with
considerable intelligence. In process of time, however, all this
changed. The founder had elaborated a system of taxation, something on
the lines of that afterwards described by Harrington in his _Oceana_,
whereby it was made by a natural development self-extinguishing. An
unhappy result of the contrivance was perhaps unforeseen by the founder,
but it soon appeared that as the central fund increased and the annual
taxes dwindled, it was more and more difficult to get members to attend
the sessions.
Before the colony was a hundred years old taxes were declared
unnecessary, and at an end for ever. By an inherent elasticity the
central fund grew with the growth of the people, and even began to
afford a surplus to be distributed amongst the beggars. There was no
need any longer to vote money. No reform of the perfected laws was
possible. Parliament became an agreeable club, to which the members when
once elected belonged by tacit consent for life. Sessions were, however,
still held, where the more imaginative deputies debated the sublime and
eternal principles of government, and pointed out to each other, with
never fading satisfaction, how divinely the Oneirian statute-book
embodied that quintessential spirit of justice which their heated
rhapsodies had distilled.
As for their business, it was almost entirely formal, consisting chiefly
in the periodical endorsement of the King's choice from among their own
number of the great state officers. It will then be easily understood
how jealously they valued their last live prerogative of choosing the
King's bride. As a matter of fact, of course, she was always selected
by the high officers of state, and the Parliament ratified the choice;
but this ratification could not be said to be a mere form, for as late
as the beginning of the century the House had absolutely refused to
endorse the ministers' choice, because the lady presented to them was
not sufficiently beautiful.
Since then greater care had been exercised in the preliminary selection,
and the attendant ceremonial considerably elaborated. The bride-elect
was now presented to the full House, dressed with every care and
splendour which was in any way calculated to enhance her attractions,
and after question put and carried, the decision of the House was sealed
by the Speaker imprinting a kiss upon the lips of the chosen beauty as
she knelt before the chair. Thereupon he raised her up, and pronounced
her election in this poetic form, "Reign, beautiful princess, crowned
with a people's kiss."
Since the introduction of the new coronation ceremony the office of
Speaker had become extremely popular. He was elected annually by virtue
of the original constitution and party feeling on the marriage question,
began once more to run very high, as the election was always decided on
strictly party lines in relation to this single topic.
It will be easy, then, to picture the condition of political circles at
the time of which we are now speaking. For some eight years the King
had been seen to reject beauty after beauty without reason given, to the
acute disappointment of successive Speakers. But now the period had
arrived when he must absolutely marry within the year and the excitement
over the approaching election to the chair had reached an almost
alarming intensity.
The body politic was divided into two main parties, the _Kallists_, who
professed that beauty should be the sole ground on which the queen
should be chosen, and the _Agathists_, who would have the selection
determined by moral worth alone. Such at least was said to be the
distinction when intelligent foreigners asked for information. Possibly
it was actually so once, but now the principles of the two parties so
overlapped that the only real question between them was who should elect
the Speaker.
It should perhaps be mentioned that there was a third party styling
themselves the _Kallikagathists_. They were a well-meaning offshoot of
the Agathists, who, fondly believing that two distinct policies still
existed, thought to produce unity by adopting both. So far it had been a
failure, and though the party had the names of many superior persons
upon it, it was little regarded.
The Court was divided into corresponding groups, and what further
complicated political relations was that the heads of the separate
palace circles were regarded as the leaders of the Parliamentary
parties, although of course their aims were widely different. In the
House the occupation of the chair filled the whole political horizon. In
the palace that was a matter of complete indifference, and the whole
struggle was to see whose introduction would eventually be made
acceptable to the King. Thus between the leaders and their followers
there existed no more real connection than there did between the
professed opinions of the respective parties and their actual aims, and
it may be doubted whether any country in Europe had been so entirely
successful in elaborating a party system by which it was impossible for
any question to be decided on its merits.
The system can only be described as chaotic. Every trace of the original
landmarks had disappeared, and yet a good Kallist would rather be called
anything than an Agathist, unless perhaps it were a Kallikagathist. An
Agathist regarded a Kallist as a frivolous person of low moral tone,
while, in the eyes of a Kallist, an Agathist was a detestable outcome of
the Puritan taint in the old settlers, a shallow pretender to an
impossible standard of virtue. A Kallist who could invent a new way of
saying an Agathist was a prig became a marked personality in the House,
while a young Agathist who succeeded in inventing a fresh figure to
express his contempt for a cynic might at once pose as a coming man.
Cynicism was certainly the prevailing tone of the Kallist salons. There
you might hear of a young girl who had hurried for an hour's relaxation
from the sickbed of a brother, or a genial old gentleman who had spent
his day in extricating a poor relation from a debtor's prison, giving it
as their perfected conviction that no excellence could be credited with
existence which you could not see. On the other hand, the atmosphere of
Agathist gatherings was decidedly one of moral platitude, where
elaborately dressed men and daintily rouged women prattled in polished
phrase of the nothingness of exteriors, and the all-sufficiency of truth
and goodness. It is certainly remarkable that a similar condition of
society has appeared nowhere else, and it is these unique
politico-social phenomena which constitute Oneiria's chief claim to find
an adequate historian.
At present the Kallists were in the ascendant. With Turbo at their head
they were naturally more than a match for the opposition, whose fortunes
at court were intrusted to the Queen-mother. The Chancellor was
certainly the strongest statesman who had appeared in the colony since
its foundation, while the Queen Margaret was fitted for her position
rather by disposition than political ability. She was the daughter of a
German officer of noble birth who, having entered the service of Spain,
rose to be Governor of the Canaries. From him she inherited all the
homely simplicity so characteristic of the family relations of his
nation. Otherwise she was not without shrewdness and a certain power of
resistance, which enabled her to oppose the splendid abilities of the
Chancellor as well, perhaps, as any one in the kingdom. It was whispered
that there were other reasons why these two naturally found themselves
in opposite camps, reasons that were known to none but themselves.
There would have been little doubt that the report was well founded in
the mind of any one who could have seen the Chancellor as he stood at
the window watching the beggars. Ten minutes after the King had left
there was a sound on his ear of a woman's tread in the ante-chamber, and
a gentle rustle of a silk dress upon the polished boards. Turbo started
and looked towards the door. It began to open, and as quickly he turned
to the window again.
"That will do," said a soft voice full of quiet dignity. "You need not
stay. I wish to be alone, and shall remain here till suppertime. Attend
me then."
The heavy door closed, and the Chancellor looked round to see the
Queen-mother advancing into the room. She was a handsome woman of not
more than fifty, with a spare, stately figure. In her powder and rouge
and the modish gown she had just assumed for the evening she looked
little more than half her age. At least so thought the Chancellor; and,
as the fitful firelight lit up her queenly form, she looked to him
almost as beautiful as though a quarter of a century had not passed
since first they met.
"If your majesty would be alone," said Turbo, with a profound bow, "I
pray your leave to retire."
"I would be alone with you, Chancellor," the Queen answered. "I wish to
speak with you."
"And your majesty denied me the pleasure of waiting on you?" said the
Chancellor, with a smile that made his snarl more hideously apparent.
"Yes," the Queen replied; "because I have that to say which I would have
no one hear; and, besides, there are other reasons why none should know
of our interview."
"Your majesty interests me strangely," said the Chancellor.
"I wish to speak to you about my son," said the Queen, with a slight
tremor in her voice. She drew towards the founder's hearth, and sat down
in a great chair that was almost a throne, and, at the same time,
motioned the Chancellor to a seat opposite to her.
"Be seated," she said, with the same hesitation as before; "I want to
converse with you as an old friend."
She looked at Turbo wistfully, as though to see some softening of his
snarl, but he avoided her glance with another profound bow in
acknowledgment of her condescension; and the Queen's heart sank as she
felt her mission was almost hopeless.